Five might-have-beens

One in which I decided to persue theater. I go to New York at 17, and live poor for a few years. Several messy relationships with people I work with later, I finally give up on New York, move to a small town with a big theatre like Creed, and really get going. After that, head to college and take theater courses and a side in music. Get side-tracked in music and eventually become a permanent fixture at the school, half teaching, half studying. Then move on and study physics and music.

Live a long time in a house full of books and musical instruments, all meticulously disorganized.

One in which I wore a blue shirt instead of grey to Independence on May 5, 1995. I never got asked if I wanted a job. I ended up working in a restaurant, then cooking, then building things, then dying falling off a building during a dip in blood pressure.

One in which I fall in love with someone local, and end up having a kid early. We rent a series of apartments, then eventually move some place cheaper. We drive a beat up Celica, and struggle to make rent.

We eventually make ends meet, and buy our house. It’s thankfully next to the library, and I hide there whenever possible, reading all the time.

I realize that I am transsexual at fifteen, and I start on hormones early. At seventeen, you’d never know if I didn’t tell you. I manage to be successful at repairing computers, and I babysit sometimes. Camp changes me in wonderful and beautiful ways. I spend a good part of that year in a heap at the end of my bed, trying to figure out romance. I pay attention to my art, and it grows. I journal compulsively.

Eventually, I decide to hang out at university. I move to a nice city, Portland, perhaps, or Victoria or Montréal, or decide I want to go to London. I study music. I discover dance. I sing.

I start transitioning to being a girl early. It works fairly well, but something’s not quite right. I feel terrible and end up on some nasty drugs.

And some futures

I start selling DSL service. I find a niche giving rural people internet service, and expand. I eventually sell the parts I don’t want to maintain, keeping a small service for myself.

Carrie and I marry, and shortly after, buy land, and start building a cottage on it. We happen to have limited water rights, which we use to irrigate our garden. We live simply and well.

I hire someone to work while I travel, and we travel the world, starting in Ireland, then around Europe, then to Northern Africa, then Asia. We end up in the Pacific and stay a while.

I start taking hormones. My parents are only vaguely supportive, and living here in town has its ups and downs. I take the extra money I have coming in and travel. I make frequent stops in Portland, because having friends there is a good thing.

My blood pressure drops at an inopportune moment, and I fall down the stairs. I end up paralysed. (Have you ever wondered why I hold onto things tightly when I stand up?)

I go to MIT and learn in the AI Lab. I join the Logarhythms or the Toons, and sing a lot. Life is good. I’m one of the few girl geeks on the campus. I end up pasty from being indoors at too many hours. I take long walks around Boston, and eat too much palate-scorching Sichuan food.

That’s nine. That’s pretty tough to come up with without inventing your death to get out of it too often.